Big Fat Lougies

Yawwwwwwn!

Tonight I folded all the laundry that I've been forgetting about since the voting games started.

For some reason folding laundry gives me and undeniable urge to curl up into a little ball and fall asleep on top of all the warm towels.

Instead I scrunched up a big ole' plaid fleece blanket and snuggled up next to Lulu on the floor. In front of a roaring fireplace. And listened to my hub read a motivational book about some big wig basketball coach to my kids.

What were the main points again? If you fail to prepare you prepare to fail? Something like that. Isn't it cool when you can turn phrases inside out to make you go hmmmmm?

Don't mistake activity for accomplishment. Hmmmm Another deep one. I would add, don't mistake inactivity for unaccomplishment. And while were at it, don't mistake accomplishment for activity.

Sometimes I enjoy being active more than I enjoy being accomplished.

Maybe that's my problem.

So my son got a fortune cookie today at school which said, "You need to stop wishing and be more practical."

Are you freakin' kidding me? That's gotta be an ancient Mormon Chinese fortune cookie, right? I can just picture the Queen Bee of the hive writing propaganda fortunes in between baking bread and canning tomatoes, can't you?

SIGH!

Can I just say that I lub my dog so dang much. She's like my favorite pet on the face of this earth. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she sticks her head and her paws up on my bed just to tell me she lubs me. I open my eyeballs and there she is, looking at me in the dark. After I give her head a pat she stretches back out on the floor beside the bed and gives a deep sigh.

We're blissfully happy together.

So my daughter comes home from Hawaii tomorrow. She's checking her baggage right now.

In case you didn't know, we used to live there before we moved here. It's been a year now so we scraped our frequent flyer miles together to send her back for five days. To celebrate her 16th birthday. And her best friend's 16th birthday. And to go through the Laie Temple open house. And the Haunted Lagoon.

But mostly we sent her back to get our tennis rackets restrung.

She calls me every day and we talk and talk and talk like school girls. I want to hear every little thing about every little thing--what everyone looks like and smells like and sounds like--what everyone says. Usually she's walking through places my feet have touched a million times--past our old town house, (WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!) or through BYU-H campus, (WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!) or along the Iron Rod, which is what we called the street that leads from the Beach to the temple.

For some odd reason my eyeballs are always on the verge of spilling their guts when we talk. It's not that I'm jealous or regretful, or even sad. It's not that I'm unhappy with my new life as a home owner and dog owner and big screen t.v owner.

It's just that Laie was my life. For years and years and years and years. And years.

And now it's not.

I hate it when things are not.

I wonder what she'll feel when she comes back. I wonder if she will go into post-childhood-home-town-depression? Maybe I shouldn't have sent her. Maybe it's better to push things down down down and not look back.


But she's speaking pidgin and eating seaweed and spam. She's going to the beach and playing ping pong on her friends kitchen table. People are hugging her on the street and in Foodland and taking photos of her at church. They're giving her free t-shirts and shakas and new tennis rackets.

"They laugh at my jokes mom!" She told me. "They LAUGH at my jokes!"

And everywhere she goes she says people tell her that they're voting for me. She said one day she was walking down the street and someone she didn't even know came running out of her house shouting, "I hope your mom wins! I'm voting for her every day."

Allow me a moment to collect my swollen tear drops.

Allow me another moment.

May I have just one more?

Maybe I'll just finish this post tomorrow. I wanted to tell you that I finally found out who I am and where I come from. All because my brother spit into a cup and had his DNA tested.

All those years of teaching about identity construction and reconstruction and the answer was right there in a big fat lougie!

Better a lougie than a fortune cookie. That's what I always say.

(Actually I've never said that before, have I?)

Can't wait to see my daughter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!